Petitioning and
People Power in
Twentieth-Century Britain
Our research project, 2020-2023
Our three-year project brings together experts in the history of petitioning, in political studies of public engagement, and in twentieth-century British society to investigate petitioning as an activity and an institution.
This enables the team to analyse a core challenge of mass democracy: how should direct, participatory, and representative democracy mix in a larger, more diverse political community?
The project’s broad chronology and interdisciplinary team permit investigation of the shift from paper to e-petitioning, enabling the first historical account of what might be gained and lost in transitions from analogue to digital politics.
Twentieth-century Britons petitioned a lot
Petitioners ranged from children opposing caning in the classroom, residents resisting new supermarkets on their streets, or campaigners seeking to abolish nuclear weapons around the globe.
The project unites an interdisciplinary team from three universities, funded by research grant AH/T003847/1